Tim, Amanda, and I were all “on” for worship this past weekend. The last year or two Amanda has occasionally filled in for me on keyboard, but she wasn’t added to the weekend worship team schedule until after she graduated from high school. I’m not sure about the timing of having to play (which is a significant # of hours between all three services and practice) the weekend that she moved out, but I do believe it was a “God” timing. And, we’re all on together again this coming weekend!

One of the singers and a good friend of ours, Leslie, commented that it was a GIFT to see our dd singing and worshipping alongside us while we were playing. My thoughts were on how OLD I am (LOL) and hoping NO ONE else noticed there were 2 generations represented on the stage because I’m not quite ready to be booted off the worship team for being too old! Thanks Leslie for your kind words about our parenting and our daughter. It is a great comfort to know that we’ve launched her well even though letting go *IS* still hard. I can’t imagine the heart ache of a parent who has to let a child go who isn’t following a Godly path.

I’m also thankful for HUMOR! Our pastor had a few questions for us while we were sitting around the conference room table. After hearing that she was moving out with some friends one questions he asked is if the friends were girls or boys (LOL)! (I’m sure he was joking since he KNOWS our dd). YIKES! It didn’t even cross my mind that some girls move out with boys when they leave home! I haven’t had to think about such things since Amanda chose a path of not dating and guarding her heart until marriage early in her high school years. I’m quite happy to report that she’s moving in with girls. I might also add that they are Godly, church attending girls as well. Ok.. so now I’m starting to talk myself into being “ever so slightly ok” with this move realizing that she has made some very good life choices which means I don’t have to grieve over poor choices on top of her moving out. Although, that does bring me to another scary and humbling thought which is if she weren’t ready to be on her own there would be NO ONE to blame but me especially since we didn’t abdicate our responsibility of educating her (and the rest of the kids) to the state. There are so many things that I wish we could have covered.. so much history, science, etc. I finally had to realize that *I* continue to learn things everyday and the kids will as well. There’s NO possible way to cover every part of history and science and yada yada yada in 12 years… moving on again… I keep getting sidetracked trying to talk myself into thinking we’ve done *ok.*

Here’s Amanda with her good friend, Libby who is helping her unload the car. You might recall seeing pics of Libby on our blog in the past…. here’s the link for a pic of her coming out to visit Amanda after she had her wisdom teeth out.

Libby’s parents bought a house in town which they rent out to 4 girls including their dd, Libby. They each have their own room and share all of the common areas. Here is Amanda in her new room.

Each girl has their own shelf in the refrigerator and freezer as well as their own cupboard in the kitchen. Emily and I made a quick stop at WalMart to buy some things for Amanda – $100 worth of groceries, shampoo, paper goods, vitamins, etc. to get her started!! She didn’t have any of those things and would have had to go shopping right away that night. So, we stopped and picked these things up for her while they were unloading the bigger things off from the trailer. She was SURPRISED!

Jean (next to Amanda above and in the pic below) doesn’t live with them, but she does live in town and she’s also very excited to have Amanda living so close by. Because we live a good 40 minutes from town it was really hard for Amanda to do things with her friends after work.. not enough time to go home, change, and go back to town. Or, activities lasted too late into the night that we didn’t think it was safe for her to drive all the way home, etc. Now she’ll be able to participate in a lot more activities with her friends! You might recognize Jean from Amanda’s graduation pictures. She’s the one who Amanda had her graduation reception with.